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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27648992">A Peculiar Kind of Peace</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueeyesandpie/pseuds/blueeyesandpie'>blueeyesandpie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>15x20 coda, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant to a Point, Dean Mourns Castiel, Dean Winchester uses his words, Fix-It, M/M, Suicidal Ideation, This coda actually starts right after the end of 15x18, With a fix it side of Saileen, life after death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:15:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,942</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27648992</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueeyesandpie/pseuds/blueeyesandpie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean tries to simply be, the way Cas had told him. He gets job applications and he goes to the store and he fixes Baby and he helps people who need it. He tries to be more open with Sam, but it’s hard to be open, to speak the truth, when the truth is so dark and brittle and broken.</p><p>He tries with every fiber of his being, but the void inside him just gets bigger. He fills it with whiskey and cries himself to sleep, most nights. Then there’s the night he realizes he can’t do it anymore, when the space inside him is too big to be ignored. </p><p>“I tried,” he whispers at the ceiling. “Cas, I tried.” </p><p>-</p><p>A 15x18-19-20 coda that stays mostly true to canon right up to the point Dean hits heaven.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>157</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Peculiar Kind of Peace</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The silence is so complete after the Empty takes Cas and Dean’s phone stops ringing that he can almost pretend that he died as well, that he’s just in that liminal space waiting for a guide to take him to his final resting place.</p><p>Then the generator kicks in, reality crashes down, and Dean’s fingers curl into the still-damp handprint on his coat like the only life line to sanity. </p><p>
  <em> Cas is gone Cas is gone Cas is gone Cas is gone— </em>
</p><p>Dean gets up somehow, of course. He gets up, and he leaves that hellhole that still stinks of Death and Empty, and he goes to find Sammy. </p><p>He watches the trees pass as he drives and thinks about Cas talking about bees, his arms waving wildly in his excitement. Dean thinks about liquor stores and porn on an ancient TV and the heavy scent of Cas’s cabin in that strange future world Zachariah had thrown him to. He thinks about being a demon. He thinks about Cas leaving to help Kelly and Jack. He thinks about funeral pyres and phone booths and “I will always come when you call” and Cas letting go as he leapt for the portal. </p><p>
  <em> —Cas is gone— </em>
</p><p>His thoughts keep him busy long after he admits to Sam that Cas sacrificed himself. They keep him busy until he takes off the jacket and folds it carefully, places it in the center of the extra trench coat Cas had kept in his closet for some reason, and puts both in Baby’s trunk. Doing it is symbolic, a ritualistic middle finger to the string of fate tied about his neck like a noose. As long as he keeps the coat, the door is open. As long as he keeps the faith, he’ll see Cas again. </p><p>It worked the first time, it has to work this time, right?</p><p>They go after Chuck because of course they go after Chuck, but when God himself punches him in the face, all Dean can think about is that he can’t even feel that. The blows fall and Dean thinks about Cas, and he thinks about what it would like to be done, finally, and he lets his heart crack open with the size of it. All the words he never got to say bubble up inside him and give him strength to keep standing, to keep smiling, to keep goading until Chuck gets tired of the game. </p><p>Victory is dull (<em> Cas is gone) </em>, Jack’s ascension just another loss to tack onto the running list Dean’s started keeping in his head. He drinks to them every day, these ghosts of his past, of the life he’d lived because some dick in the sky decided he must.  They’d all died to put him where he is now, and to what purpose? It doesn’t feel like there was any then, and there certainly isn’t any now. Everything is gray.</p><p>Dean remembers lighting Cas’s pyre a few years ago when they’d still thought Jack was the devil incarnate. His loss had hacked and slashed at him, flayed him from the inside out. The grief had turned to rage that burned through him like Cas’s grace, had kept him on his feet. </p><p>He wishes he could feel that anger right now, could find the drive to keep going that he’d had back then, but there’s just nothing left. He’s running on empty, alone in his mind. At night he sits on his bed with a bottle of Jack and pushes his fists against his chest, harder and harder until he can hardly breathe. </p><p>He notices, in a vague sort of way, that Sammy talks a lot about talking about feelings, but isn’t great at simply letting the damn things exist in their natural state. Everything is to be processed and pushed out. Time moves on relentlessly, and so too does Sam’s mind.</p><p>Dean tries to follow. He tries to simply <em> be </em>, the way Cas had told him. He gets job applications and he goes to the store and he fixes Baby and he helps people who need it. He tries to be more open with Sam, but it’s hard to be open, to speak the truth, when the truth is so dark and brittle and broken.</p><p><em> What’s the point? </em> He thinks as he feeds the dog. He’s not sure why he’s keeping her, all things considered; their life isn’t great for keeping pets and Sam’s always been the one going on about dogs. In the end she’s there, though, and he can’t let her suffer. </p><p>He tries with every fiber of his being, but the void inside him just gets bigger. He fills it with whiskey and cries himself to sleep, most nights. Then there’s the night he realizes he can’t do it anymore, when the space inside him is too big to be ignored. </p><p>“I tried,” he whispers at the ceiling. “Cas, I tried.” </p><p>The next morning he drops himself into a chair across from Sammy in the library and starts looking for jobs that matter. He’s barely started looking at all when “pie fest” catches his eye. He stares at it, confused by the sudden explosion of noise in his head. He frowns and focuses on the feeling, but then it’s gone like it never happened. </p><p>“You got anything?” Sammy asks. Then, when Dean doesn’t respond immediately, prompts again: “Dean?”</p><p>“I got something,” he confirms. As he gets up to grab his coat, he feels a puzzle piece slide into place in his mind.</p><p>-</p><p>There are children screaming, balloons floating around, and the smell of pie is everywhere. As far as Dean from ten years ago is concerned, this place is heaven on earth, but all Dean from the present day can think of is how alone he feels.</p><p>“You sure you’re ready for this?” Sam asks, picking up on his mood.</p><p>“Oh, I don’t have a choice. This is my destiny.” The words are meant to be a joke; they roll off Dean’s tongue so naturally he doesn’t realize what he’s said until it’s already out between them. As soon as his mouth closes the truth explodes inside his head, the memories he’d pushed down until he’d convinced himself they no longer existed coming to life once more. He remembers his death book in Billie’s hand, the words on the page, the destiny he’d read that made no sense back then—back when he’d thought Michael was their greatest threat, that there's no way he would survive what they were facing.</p><p><em>Dean Winchester will die an unremarkable death on an unremarkable case in an unremarkable place</em>. That’s the fate he’d always assumed he’d have, but seeing it written out had seemed impossible at the time. How could anyone with heaven’s price on his head die "unremarkably?" He'd dismissed it, laughed it off, but now here he is and he knows it's coming. It feels right that he's back on track to meet his original fate. Death setting the scales even, perhaps. He's fine with it; content, even.</p><p>With the knowledge comes a peculiar sort of peace. He’d spent so much time railing against fate the last few years, begging for the chance to write his own story, that he’d sort of forgotten how to live without that desperation. Now at the end, when he knows he’s still being written into some eternal tapestry despite all his fighting, he finds that knowing what’s going to happen makes it easier to experience. </p><p>He’s ready to go, anyway, and maybe that’s a bigger factor than knowing it’s going to happen.  He never left the room where Cas died, not really, and as he eats his pie and watches the kids play, he knows now that he never will. If he somehow tricks fate and survives this hunt, he knows he’ll just find another opportunity, and another, and another, until he can finally let go. That’s just how it is, now, his new reality.</p><p>Dean’s pretty sure he made it through after all. He's resigned himself to another hunt and another attempt long before his back hits the wall later that night. He tries to jump forward, focused on ganking the last skull-masked dick in the barn, but for some reason he can't move. He tries twice more before he feels cold climbing up his legs, and realizes he’s pinned to the wall like a butterfly in a collector’s case. </p><p><em> I’m sorry, Sammy </em> , Dean thinks as he relaxes against the wall. His skull makes a sound like a gong in his brain when it hits the wood behind him. <em> I’m so sorry </em>. </p><p>Billie’s book hadn’t given Dean a script, but he doesn’t need one for this part. He says the things he has to say, lets Sammy say the things he needs to say. It’s hard to leave Sam this way, to know his baby brother will shoulder the burden of loss alone now, but as the cold creeps into his core, he lets himself think that maybe it’s okay, actually. It’s okay for someone else to carry the weight he’s held for so long. He can let go, because Sam's big enough to take it now. He'll be okay.</p><p>Dean can see sparks spiraling in his vision. They’re vivid against the shadows beyond Sam’s worried face. For a second he thinks he can taste the promise of rain in spring. He can hear <em> I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition </em>spoken with such sincerity it breaks his heart. Tears drip down his cheeks, and they're hot until they're cold, just like the rest of him.</p><p>There’s a rustle. It might be blood in his ears and it might be wings. He lets himself follow the sound.</p><p>-</p><p>Dean settles into life in Heaven pretty easily. It ain’t called heaven for nothing, after all; it’s very easy to get lost in how good the place feels, because that's what you're supposed to do.</p><p>He does sometimes wonder if Heaven is <em> really </em> fixed, or if this is the only heaven the angels could think of that might keep him contained. He wonders, as he tinkers with Baby or plays pool with Jo and Ash, or drinks a beer with Bobby, if he should be trying harder to get out.</p><p>Isn’t that what he’s supposed to do? Isn’t he <em> supposed </em>to claw his way out of the grave and keep fighting? Shouldn’t he be trying harder to get back to Sammy? That’s who he has always been, what he’s always done; it’s a little strange, sometimes, to think that he isn’t doing it. Not so strange that he actually tries, though, and ain't that something.</p><p>Eileen shows up in the morning some time after Dean gets there. She doesn’t say much about her life <em> before </em>, but she has a ring on her finger and there’s a photo of Sam and a little boy in overalls on her mantle when Dean visits her that evening. That’s all he needs to clap her on the shoulder and envelope her in a welcoming hug. </p><p>He’s utterly unsurprised when Sam walks in a few minutes later, heaven doing its handy time trick to keep the lovers together. They laugh and drink and talk for hours, and Dean heads home after with a spring to his step.</p><p>He pauses with one foot on the doorstep when he gets there, however, his eyes caught on a shadow cast by moonlight through the trees in the field beyond. Long and black, spread across the field like—like—</p><p>The holes in his thoughts, the spaces he couldn’t explain but had assumed existed because heaven was simply <em> different </em> , began to fill. He knows without question that he is regaining something he hadn't known was missing, but the <em>loss</em> that slams into him is unfathomable. Blue eyes and brown hair and a dirty trench coast. Blood in his teeth and the burn of grace, gentle hands pulling him up, arms wrapped around his shoulders a little too tightly. Tears falling, words spoken with utter sincerity and the absolute anguish of knowing they would be the last they shared. Everything light and good shining from Cas's eyes, only to be swallowed by ink and malice moments later.</p><p><em> I love you </em>. </p><p>“Son of a bitch<em>.</em>” Dean’s legs give out and he falls, landing on his ass with his face buried in his hands. “<em>Castiel </em>.” </p><p>The ache slams back with a vengeance, all the hurt and pain and grief that Heaven had erased suddenly raising its ugly head to consume him. Dean lets himself slide further down until he’s curled on his side on the ground, his arms wrapped around himself in a futile attempt to protect himself. </p><p>The loss hurts worse now, somehow, than it had before. The pain is sharper now that it isn’t watered down by the loss of his other friends and family; now that Dean can really think about all Cas had given and the fate he had accepted in order to save Dean. It’s worse, too, for knowing that Heaven had erased his memory of it. He knows there's no way he could have been content in heaven knowing Cas is out there all alone. He also knows, in a flash of clarity so strong he has to close his eyes against the enormity of it all, <em>why</em> he couldn't be content.</p><p>He gets up, climbs the steps, then turns his face to the sky. It seems more appropriate to face this thing on his feet, somehow, than to let it consume him while he lies in the dirt.</p><p>“You got your ears on, Cas?” </p><p>The wind picks up speed in the trees. He chooses to take it as a sign to continue. </p><p>“I need—want—you to know something important. Something I should’ve told you a long time ago.” He pauses to take a breath, to swallow the shaky feeling in his stomach, “I love you, too. You deserved to be happy,” his voice hitches with a dry sob on ‘deserve’ and breaks altogether on ‘happy,’ “You deserve so much better than this. I’m gonna—gonna get you out of there. Somehow. I swear.” </p><p>Dean knows Cas is stuck in the Empty; he knows a single human in heaven isn’t going to change that cosmic consequence, or it would have been changed already. That doesn’t mean he isn’t going to try. He’ll try every damn day for the rest of eternity if that’s what it takes. It’s not like he hasn’t fought God before. If he fights hard enough, maybe everyone will get tired of him and chuck him into the Empty as well, where he and Cas could at least share the same space. </p><p><em>If anything’s worth dying for, it’s this</em>.</p><p>
  <em> I’d rather have you. </em>
</p><p>The wind picks up even more as Dean stands there. He’s never seen it properly <em> storm </em> in heaven; it’s fierce and wild and more beautiful than anything he ever saw while living, so he stays where he is even after the clouds have rolled in and the first drops of rain splash on his face.</p><p>The world fades in on itself from there, dream and reality and imagination fading together in an endless loop. The storm rages on and on through decades then back to minutes, only to stretch into centuries once more. Lightning flashes and thunder growls, the clouds pile up, then fade away, only to pile up again. </p><p><em> It looks like some sort of battle </em> , he thinks dreamily, and it isn’t until there’s one particularly bright flash and a crash like blades in conflict that it occurs to him that perhaps Jack is actually fighting up there. He doesn’t dare think about <em> what </em> Jack may be fighting, or why. That’s the stuff of fairy tales, not his own broken reality.</p><p>The storm continues to rage with shrieking voices and the buffeting sound of angel wings. Dean gets lost in it again, to the point that he’s not sure when the familiar figure standing in front of him in the muddy road actually appears. It’s almost as if he’s always been there and Dean just hadn’t noticed before.</p><p>“Cas?” Dean asks, feeling as if the entire universe has suddenly canted sideways and he’s about to fall off. Cas’s clothes are dripping inky black goo and his hair is plastered to his forehead with rain. He looks confused, head tilted to the side as he takes in the dark, rain-soaked fields around him, but then he looks up, and Dean can <em> see </em> his breath catch in his throat.</p><p>“Hello, Dean,” Cas says. It’s uncertain, a little wobbly, as if Cas himself can’t believe he’s saying it, but that’s all it takes for Dean to jump off the porch, to cross the space between them, to grab Cas by the front of his stupid <em> fucking </em> coat, and reel him so close there’s no space for anything but Dean’s unspoken words between them. </p><p>From there Dean’s heart does a slow flip in his chest because oh shit, oh fuck, it’s one thing to say a thing for the first time when he’s sure it won’t be heard, and another to say it again with Cas pressed against him from shoulders to feet. It only takes a moment for the fear to vanish completely, however, hidden behind the simplicity and beauty of what he needs to say, and the beautiful clear blue of Cas’s eyes.</p><p>“You stupid son of a bitch,” Dean says, letting go of Cas’s coat to reach up, run his thumb over Cas’s cheek, and cradle his face against his palm, “I love you, too.” </p>
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